A Clearer Version of the Witness 8 Call With Crump

Found in a comment by Tara at Conservative Treehouse: this link to ABC's website with 5 minutes of ABC's recording of the telephone call between Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump and Witness 8, Trayvon's phone friend, recorded on March 19, 2012. Crump has acknowledged ABC's Matt Guttman and his assistant were present during the interview and Guttman tweeted at the time he had a recording of the conversation.

Why are we only finding this clip now? Did ABC recently release this? It appears so. Does it have anything to do with O'Mara's motion for a subpoena to ABC News for the original recordings, to which it filed an objection but which has not yet been heard by the court? Or does it have to do with Benjamin Crump's oh-so carefully worded affidavit about his interview with Witness 8 and the circumstances of the recording?

While this ABC clip is only 5 minutes and 19 seconds of the 14 minute recording, it is so much clearer than any version Crump or the State have produced to date. Witness 8 is much easier to understand.

but more so from the southern accents than the very words. A good analyst could easily understand and transpose this call especially the enhanced one. There must come a time with faint or broken up cell phone recordings that they become inadmissible evidence. Since crimes like white collar, drug, etc. use phone taps I wonder who decides if they are admissible.

It's called African American Vernacular English, closely related to Southern American English. As a Southerner, I have no problem at all understanding Crump, but I still can't understand DeeDee very well. Clearly, Crump understands this is an issue because he encourages her to speak louder, more slowly and a proper distance from the phone.

Language is a living thing that changes over time and in different locations.

than Dee Dee/Witness 8 is on this tape. For instance, at time 4:28 in the recording, he says, "OK. I'm wanna, I wanna stop you and I'm gonna have you say all of that over again, just that part there. And I want you to, uh, tell about how you, how he said, how Trayvon said, 'I thought I lost him and then.' I want you to start off right there, 'I thought I lost him and then he caught up.' I want you to do it loud and slow, OK? So I can get it, because I remember you said Trayvon, you told Trayvon to run home. And that, and so I want you to say that. (Witness says: "No, Trayvon's, I told Trayvon to run home because after he said he had lost him, so Trayvon told me he, he gonna run for it.
...
Crump: "1,2,3."
Witness 8: "Trayvon, run for it!"

Crump is practically saying, "Dee Dee, I want you to say these words: ..."

That's beyond leading a witness. It's creating a scenario that the witness never even admitted to, at least during this recording.

Their whole case is based on the premise that Zimmerman kept following Martin, who lost him and made it to his father's house where a chasing Zimmerman finally caught up and attacked him. Crump is practically pleading with Witness 8 to get her to say that on tape. But she didn't say it, and that theory simply doesn't fit with the rest of the facts in the case. Basically, they're going to have to coach the heck out of this witness, which they certainly might do, to get a more convincing testimony.

very bad interviewing methodology by Crump or he wanted to get the responses that were useful to him and his clients recorded clearly. He did, after all, sign an affidavit that the Martin family hired him for civil suits, didn't he? He was 'opposing council' of some sort. That's why Nelson denied the defense the chance to depose him.

Is it permissible for 'opposing council' to manipulate a witness's testimony prior to any civil suits let alone prior to their testimony under oath in a criminal case?

It seems very clear to me that Crump was telling DD what was important and what she should talk about. It's ridiculous to think such a young woman would't focus on the details stressed as important by crump, an ESQ, and carry them into the BDLR interview.

by telling Witness 8 what to say? Is it witness tampering to tell her what to say before the police had a chance to interview her? If so, do his words on this tape provide clear enough evidence of that crime? Are the parts that are missing from Crump's recording evidence that he tried to hide the fact that he literally told Witness 8 what to say?

What will happen if Witness 8 comes up with a more extensive story in court? What if she says she now remembers that there was a gap of time after she said to run home, in between when Trayvon said he was at his father's house and when she supposedly heard someone knock Trayvon down?

Given the times of the call, could George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin have had a physical altercation that started at his father's house and ended up way back where the evidence was found?

Given the times of the call, could George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin have had a physical altercation that started at his father's house and ended up way back where the evidence was found?

The problem with that scenario is that W11, who lives at the northwest corner of the T, is certain that what she heard was a verbal exchange started very near the top of the T, which turned to a scuffle, moved to or past her patio door and turned to screams for help. W6, her next-door neighbor, agrees that he first heard the altercation north of his residence and moving south.

Some witnesses are aware that it is not easy to locate the source of a noise, some aren't.

We are back to Jeralyn's core argument about the most reliable witnesses and the way they confirm GZ's story. Even the teacher, since at least she lives close to the T.

I am not saying I have subscribed to any scenario, I still hope the GPS data read by specialists can tell us more about the precise movements in time and space.

Basically, and no I have not looked into this close enough, I think this may be the context:

Crump's affidavit, page 12-13

b. Audio problems associated with the cell phone used to call Witness 8 and the need to place her on hold (in an effort to improve the quality of the Recording, I was compelled to use multiple celll phones during the course of the Interview in an effort to determine which phone had the best "speakerphone' and, as Defendant's Redacted and Converted copies of the recording make clear, I decided at one point to call Witness 8 back on a particular cell phone that appeared to have the best speakerphone');

I guess W-8 will have to find a way to make her earlier testimony compatible with: (1) a substantial time from the initial chase and the catching up; and (2) the location of the altercation being away from the father's house.

Because she's not the most articulate of people, I doubt her testimony will come across as persuasive.

I guess W-8 will have to find a way to make her earlier testimony compatible with: (1) a substantial time from the initial chase and the catching up; and (2) the location of the altercation being away from the father's house.

Why would W8 have to come up with an explanation for where TM was during this time? What statement did she make that is "incompatible" with (1) or (2)?

good comment. No press releases yet on gz.legal, or will it be a motion? Pretty similar lately anyway. Jeralyn is still mediating how this latest revelation could fit into her own specific suspicion scenario too. Matt Gutman?

Heightened excitement in the diverse self-declared chapters of Team Zimmerman? Reminds me of the many odd noises on the NEN call. I have to admit this was the first time I was slightly amused to watch the Forum and it's hero member wondering why the media is soooo silent on the bombshell. Or DebFromHell who was sure, the tape has been taken down again. Amusing to watch.

I offered her to delete my comment, Hell, if I may. I am not sure if Deb stands for Debra and "Frm" for "from", which feels unusable as a short from.

I respect her expertise, since I am not a legal expert, and I am a very inpatient person, unfortunately. Sometimes it shows. I am simply very, very curious oncerning her analysis. And I didn't know she had problems with her system. Since I once lost about 12 hours work like that, I immediately felt very guilty. But there you go, sometimes humans only think about themselves and don't respect others the way they should. I am human.

in the way of any evidence as to TM's actual location throughout the evening. Even when she says he's under the mail, shade thingy, we have no idea whether its one at RVC or somewhere else. About the only descriptive information she provides as to TM's location that we can use is that he was "right by his fathers house" and even that is subjective because we have no idea what distance "right by" is. The prosecution has no way of showing the paths that TM and GZ took that evening other than potentially GPS data which appears to be missing from TM's phone. I presume GZ's GPS data is either missing or not helpful to the prosecution since they have not introduced it as evidence. The prosecution appears to have already admitted they have no evidence to contradict GZ's account of the path he took that evening.

In the Crump interview, W8 seems to be trying to intimate there was a walking chase, though she says TM simply asks "why are you following me" (not why are you chasing me or get away from me). No explanation is given in the Crump interview as to why TM would be walking if someone was chasing him. This also appears like a following scenario in the BDLR interview with the culmination of TM asking "Why are you following me for", but after making no mention of it to Crump, she repeats multiple times that TM couldn't run because he was tired and out of breath. I think the important revelation from the Crump interview is W8's recollection of what GZ said "what are you talking about" and Crumps redirecting her to say "What are you doing around here", which she complies with.

that it completely blows Crump's absurd affidavit claims out of the water.

Paragraph 31 says:

To the best of my knowledge, while the Recording does not include the Preliminary Inquiry, it contains every substantive statement that Witness 8 ever made to me in regard to her conversations with Trayvon on February 26, 2012, what she heard or might have been in a position to perceive as a result of those conversations, as well as every other substantive statement that Witness 8 ever made to me that could have a tendacy to prove or disprove a material fact potentially at issue in the Litigation or the instant case (including, but not limited to, those relating to the offenses with which the Defendant has been charged, the potentially lesser included offense of manslaughter, Defendant's claim of self-defense, justifiable homicide, excusable homicide, Florida's Stand Your Ground Law and wrongful death claim). To the extent Witness 8 may have made other statements -- whether arguably relevant, legally discoverable or otherwise -- that are not contained in the Recording but that I was potentially in a position to hear or understand during the Interview, apart from what was said in the Preliminary Inquiry, I have no recollection as to the substance or content of such statements.

In the ABC video, W8 makes a number of substantive statements to Crump which are not contained in Crump's recording.

The ABC clip, while clearer, was omitted from the recording the state provided to the defense in December. Here is a screengrab of where it fits in the overall interview. It corresponds to the end of the second clip provided in that discovery batch where Crump announces at the end that he's turning the recorder off, and the beginning of the third clip, which begins where Gutman's version ends, with Witness 8 saying, "Trayvon had run for it."

a thread regarding civil suits in the forum. It is under Other Case-Related Topics. It comes with the usual stern warning that there are to be no character attacks or false accusations. I would appreciate some input from people who understand Immunity and Civil Suits.

I wrote out my analysis to the conversation and then zap, the tab disappeared, and I spent a few hours trying to find it in cache and may have mucked up some settings. If you keep having a problem, please let me know, along with what browser you are using. When I lose something I spent hours writing, I get frustrated and start clicking on things I have no idea what they are. I ended up recreating it, but it's 15 pages, and I don't want to publish that long a blog post, so I'm trying to figure out how to convert it to an adobe pdf so I can upload it and link to it.

Sorry, for your troubles. With long files it always makes sense to use some security. Open office has a perfect integrated tool to save files. That's why I started using it. Strictly that is open source and may be possibly integrated in a blog too somehow for experts. ;)

I am impatiently waiting for your take on matters. I am very curious.

No problems on my side. Using Firefox. Strictly I only had troubles once (late February, early March) and checking told me over here in Europe that the server was down.

What is peculiar in this context is that the server seemed down only from the US. Once I stopped the using anonymous browsing software I could access your blog. I have no idea how that works technically, but it actually happened.

Open office has an integrated pdf.conversion tool. Instead of saving the file one can save it into a pdf.file. Open office is freely available on the web. Although one should take care to only download it from official sites.

web pages or word processing documents to pdf. Or creating pdf documents. I have Adobe X professional and it does everything.

The problem is I can't save drafts in TalkLeft that preserve the formatting, and if I copy the text from the talkleft writing window into a word processor for a draft, the word processor document shows the html coding rather than the embedded links. So when I convert the word processing document to pdf, the pdf version shows the html coding.

If I write the document in the word processor and insert the hyperlinks, they don't transfer to the talkleft writing window.

It's complicated, but it's a problem within the blogging program, not the word processor or Adobe.

version of the entire tape. In the first few Crump recorded files, you can hear the family, Gutman, his assistant and Crump discuss not being able to hear Witness 8. Gutman (or his assistant) were actively involved in this discussion. At one point, either Gutman or his assistant suggests to Crump that they ask Witness 8 if she has a landline they can call her back on, but Crump dismisses the suggestion.

Due to the difficulty hearing Witness 8, Crump would stop the recorder, end the call, take someone else's phone, call her back, and start his recorder again, hoping that another phone would have a clearer speaker.

When he did this at the end of tape 2, it may have been Gutman's phone he used to call her back. Gutman's phone may have had an internal recording device, which he activated before giving it to Crump. So if Crump forgot to re-press the record button on his recorder, or mistakenly assumed he had, Gutmans' phone could have recorded for five minutes while Crump's recorder did not.

For certain though, Crump wasn't relying on Gutman's phone to record, since he says in his affidavit he doesn't know to this day if Gutman actually recorded anything.

recall the dates for included records for W8. I am wondering if MOM has been able to get them from say March 1st to see if there are any contact numbers listed in that Simple Mobile for Crump/Jackson etal.

Reviewing the tapes I get the notion that there may have been two different recording devices.
Until Mr. OMara is able to dispose Mr. Crump and anyone else present during the W8 interview we won't get any closer to answering very important questions regarding this "key witness".

I am aware that the Judge denied the defenses request to depose Mr. Crump. The citing was that the Defense failed to argue it properly. I am aware that since the State has admitted W8 lied under oath and since the defense has again attempted to obtain a deposition because of this.
I feel a solid way of getting to depose Mr. Crump the Defense needs to specifically state to the the court that there are no other means that exist to obtain the information than to depose Mr. Crump. The information they are seeking is relevant and not privileged, and that it is needed in order for a fair trial. And United Phosphorous opinion should have been noted in the motion. especially after Crumps answers the first time around.

It is unclear if the State will call W8, and what they would use her for. If the defense is asking the Court to reconsider based just on the possibility that they may find inconsistencies the Judge can reject it based on that because the defense can simply impeach her if she is called to testify.
At this point all the defense is claiming in the new motion is the truthfulness of other parts of W8's testimony, nothing specific about Mr. Crump and why his deposition is important to the trial and his clients due process rights.
IMO this is a discovery and due process issue.
The defense should be asking to depose based on the the fact Mr. Crump interviewed a key witness and his testimony is not and would not be immune from discovery (it would be Mr. Crump who must show burden if he rests on asserting that privilege).

United Phosphorus, Ltd. v. Midland Fumigant, Inc., 164 F.R.D. 245, 247 (D. Kan. 1995). The court observed: "Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3) clearly contemplates discovery from attorneys as well as from the parties themselves or their agents. When work product is sought under Rule 26(b)(3), such discovery is limited to circumstances where the party seeking discovery can establish a substantial need and an inability to obtain the substantial equivalent by other means. The burden of establishing the criteria set forth in Rule 26(b)(3) is upon the party seeking discovery. Neither the criteria for determining the appropriateness of discovery or the burden of establishing the existence of the criteria are altered because the documents were prepared by or in the custody of an attorney. Not only are attorneys not exempt from this rule, discovery from them is clearly contemplated. It is inconceivable that had the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Supreme Court or Congress intended to exempt attorneys from the provisions of Rule 30 or to otherwise limit discovery from attorneys, they would not have included a provision in Rule 30 similar to that contained in Rule 26(b)(3). Had the Court or Congress intended to engraft a preliminary showing when deposition discovery was sought from attorneys, such an exception would likely have been found in Rule 30 or otherwise within the Rules of Civil Procedure. Attorneys with discoverable facts, not protected by attorney-client privilege or work product, are not exempt from being a source for discovery by virtue of their license to practice law or their employment by a party to represent them in litigation."

Since the fact the copies of recordings the defendant sought are intelligible and there is no other means to receive this discovery Crump should be disposed. Work product claims by Mr. Crump and the State? It appears Mr. Crump was conducting a private criminal investigation prior to the defendants arrest and prior to the completion of any county or State criminal investigation for the sole purpose to take this to the public in order to compel an arrest. Was he really hired for a civil case? And if he was how far is he in representing the family in their civil case?